Of Younis Khan’s flip-flops, England-SA preview and a trivia

Flip-flopping his retirement plans!

When Younis Khan had announced his retirement from the T20 format of the game, there were many an expert who had expressed their surprise over his announcement. Some had graciously used the usual set of clichés in ‘retire when they ask why, rather than why not’, while there were others, most notably the cricket followers from the other countries who had smirked at the seemingly inexplicable decision.

All of a sudden, Pakistan became embroiled in a match-fixing controversy, where the captain Younis Khan tendered his resignation from the longer formats of the game as well, but was coaxed into continuing. As it turned out, Younis has now done a total U-turn, and expressed his intentions of returning back to the most condensed format of the game as well. And the reason, in Younis’ own words is, ‘if my country-men and my players want me to come back I will!’ Probably Younis Khan has been inspired by Imran Khan, who was convinced into taking the reigns of the side again and led them to a World Cup triumph.

Some things never change in Pakistani cricket, I guess.

Moving on, after a hiatus of almost 20 days, the T20 cricket resumes action when the South Africans take on England in a two match T20I series. At the best of times, it is difficult enough to predict favourites for matches in this format, but these games could be particularly close.

It is the South African bowling attack has been found wanting this season in both, the ODIs and T20Is. Especially on pitches which have not had too much for the bowlers, the likes of Albie Morkel and even the usually difficult to get away, Dale Steyn have had a problem or two. Of course, Charl Langeveldt’s return to the squad – and in all probabilities to the playing eleven – could mean good news for the Proteas, given that his bowling in the death overs has won his side many games.

The one other plus that the English side could possess is that their middle-order seems like it is T20I ready. The troika of Kevin Pietersen, Luke Wright and Jonathon Trott add a lot more spice to the batting and this you-blink-you-miss format seems to have been made just for them. Trott has yet to play in a single T20I but if his record in the T20s for his county side, Warwickshire, is anything to by, then he could be quite a handful.

My personal call for this will be 1-1, and the one batsman I would be most interested in watching would be Pietersen – especially after the statements of his team-mate, Graeme Swann, about how he needs to earn back his place, would spur him on.

To end this piece, just a spot of T20 trivia. Chris Gayle is the only cricketer so far to score a century in the T20Is and he had done it in the very first game of the ICC World T20 in 2007 against South Africa. The highest score by an Indian batsman is 75 by Gautam Gambhir, in the final game of the same tournament against Pakistan!